Timo Rautiainen & Trio Niskalaukaus are brusque, heavy and devoted. In their music beautiful northern melodies meet a stone wall of three guitars bringing heaviness into new dimensions. Behind this wall a committed listener can hear influences from old masters such as Black Sabbath and Neil Young integrate with the influence from modern metal artists.

The lyrics of the band deal with global and personal tragedies. Some themes used include nuclear waste deliveries, the global warming phenomenon, the death of a loved one, as well as the ill-fortuned love of a bachelor from the Finnish countryside with an estonian woman. The latter one has a tragic end: the woman leaves, the man stays. One should keep in mind that hanging oneself requires guts when the roof is too low and the rope too thick...

Although the band was founded as late as 1997 the mastermind of the band, Timo Rautiainen had done a long career as a pioneer in the Finnish metal scene. Ever since the beginning of the 80's he has created and played music that has changed little and retained the unique sound throughout the years. Before founding Trio Niskalaukaus Timo played in a band called Lyijykomppania, whose old albums still have a strong cult status in the Finnish scene. Therefore Timo had a strong fanbasis to back him up when he started his solo career. The number of the fans has increased fast since the beginning of Trio Niskalaukaus, but the step into the charts came after the release of the second full-length album Itku pitkästä ilosta in the spring 2000. The album has been loved both by rock critics and fans making the album reach excellent sales and chart positions, and raging masses of fans in concerts in Finland.

For two decades Timo created music only in Finnish, because he didn't want to be one of the Finnish artists that go to conquer the world with English-speaking albums and come back playing the blues. But when a friend of his suggested to him that he could do a German-speaking album with the help of the friend, Timo's interest awoke. No Finnish band had done a German-speaking album before Trio Niskalaukaus, so this idea suits the profile of the band as the innovators of the scene perfectly. It took half a year to realise the idea, but everybody involved thinks it has paid off. In frostigen Tälern ("In Frozen Valleys") is perhaps the strongest album of the band, because it consists of the best pieces of the two Finnish-speaking albums.

Timo Rautiainen & Trio Niskalaukaus are committed to their principles. Instead of spewing fire and blood or wearing tights and playing ultra-fast solos on their knees on stage the band concentrates on the relevant: they play music that works like a shot in the head (Niskalaukaus = headshot) and they mean what they say. Even after the chart success the attitude of the band has remained as merciless as in the beginning: they don't ask for forgiveness and they think that one should be ashamed of belonging to mankind.

source: http://netti.nic.fi/~mattlar/niskalaukaus/english.html